Customers of modern telecommunications service providers have high expectations regarding the quality of service offered by the providers. From large corporations to individual end-users, every customer desires high transmission speeds. Furthermore, many of the same customers demand highly-available systems in which downtime is minimized or, in many cases, completely eliminated. To ensure customer satisfaction and to keep up with competitors, service providers operate massive networks with countless pieces of equipment. Predictably, as the complexity of the networks has increased, the complexity of maintaining the networks in working condition has also increased.
To aid service providers in providing a high quality of service while minimizing downtime, many equipment manufacturers offer network management systems (NMS). A typical NMS enables network operators to monitor the status of elements in the network and quickly isolate and solve problems that may arise. By gathering information regarding each of the elements in the network, the NMS may build a database detailing the topology of the network and providing information about its status. Thus, an NMS is essentially a third-party observer that collects information to obtain an accurate view of the arrangement and status of the network.
Many service providers implement advanced infrastructures that make it challenging for the NMS to maintain an accurate representation of the network. As an example, many service providers have begun to implement multi-chassis interfaces, in which the service provider utilizes redundant network nodes. Such an arrangement ensures high availability, even in the event of a failure of an entire node. In particular, upon failure of a primary node, a secondary node attached to the primary node resumes operation, such that there is little to no downtime.
As should be apparent from this description, however, the arrangement of nodes in such a multi-chassis interface becomes more complex. Current discovery mechanisms implemented by an NMS fail to properly associate the redundant nodes with one another. In particular, an NMS may incorrectly associate an endpoint belonging to a given multi-chassis interface with an endpoint belonging to a different multi-chassis interface. Thus, in many situations, the NMS may provide the operator with a view of the network that differs from the actual arrangement of the network. In addition to providing erroneous information, this makes it difficult for the operator of the NMS to isolate and correct faults in the network when a failed element is a member of a multi-chassis interface represented incorrectly.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to implement functionality in a network management system that would allow the system to maintain an accurate representation of the topology of the network. In particular, it would be desirable to enable the network management system to accurately reflect the status and connectivity of multi-chassis interfaces in the network. Other desirable aspects will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification.